I’m still playing sporadically in D3 Season 19. However, I’m spending more time in Forums talking about D4 than I am spending time playing D3. Some of that time in Forum is thinking about ways to discourage cheating in D4 since cheating is so rampant in D3. Any suggestions?
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Loot has to rain from the sky again and leveling capped. If they aren’t botting for loot then they’re botting for paragons. Maybe better security?
Other than Security, how can the game change to discourage cheating? How can the game change to remove the incentive to cheat?
There are several ways to address cheating, botting, etc.
- To avoid hacked items and characters, some code is kept server side where players can’t change it.
- Security - programs like Warden that scan for bot software and report it to the game company.
- Actual action being taken against accounts using cheats, bots, etc.
- Modifying the game mechanics to make it harder for bots to operate, or for a player to gain anything useful from using a bot.
- Game mechanic adjustments that make players feel they don’t NEED to bot/cheat.
Regardless though, there are some people who will cheat at anything just because. It is almost impossible to avoid totally without teleporting a player to a sealed room to play on a computer totally controlled by the game company.
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I’m sure D4 will have an entirely new version of warden. They won’t just copy + paste D3’s version into D4, it will be improved upon and be better than ever. They likely already have new security measures that could go live tomorrow, but they are saving them for the release of D4 instead of implementing them immediately. This will give us a period of grace while D4 is still new, saving the improved (although probably somewhat temporary) security measures for when they will make the most difference.
When the cheat makers start doing their dirty work again, another cycle of security development and implementation will begin again.
Also, we had word from a blue a while back that “the botters’ time will come soon”, so D3’s warden likely has an improved security update due soon.
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Remove the cheater boards, and the cheaters will no longer have any incentive to cheat.
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This is a reasonable assumption.
Don’t count on this. Tech evolves and so does the detection and anti cheat software. Don’t think that it won’t ever be deployed in D3 though. Blizz tends to iterate and migrate systems from one game to the next. Tech developed for one game is very often used in/on another.
This does not seem logical to me. Grace periods are not something Blizz usually grants. We have a long way to go before D4 releases. They are not going to ignore D3 bots, maphacks, exploits, forever. I suggest reading all the Blue posts recently regarding bots, exploits, etc.
The incentive to cheat has to do with the human condition, ego.
It is nearly impossible to eliminate. It requires substantial investment in education and even then the axiomatic nature of choice can render remnants to remain. Unfortunately, designing a game that removes incentives to cheat also removes incentives to play, from cheaters & non-cheaters alike.
I get what you’re getting at, I’m picking up what you’re putting down, but the problem is one that has its roots ingrained much deeper than what game developers can ‘solve’ in terms of incentive. While they can attempt to combat it, frivolous futility.
Humanity as a society & community can start shaming cheaters more. Until the mentality that ‘perceived status of winning is more important than doing so legitimately’ is thwarted, cheaters going to cheat. Winning is a psychology. The part of that psychology that places it above doing so legitimately is corrupted, and that is not something game designers can address in terms of development.
Someone mentioned using block chain programming to help alleviate things.
shrug
This thread is not about security. This thread is about how gameplay can be changed to make it harder to cheat or to remove incentives to cheat. What are your suggestions on how to make it harder to cheat in D4 or how to reduce incentives to cheat in D4?
Talk to me about that when we actually know more about D4 gameplay. So very little has been released there is no way to really comment on that.
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Well. I am all for offline gaming, so we can play on our own terms. That said, I mean we could avoid cheaters by not being part of anything related to them.
But since they want online only, or at least until Diablo IV becomes “old”, I have no clue.
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See this.
If they designed the game to have no incentives to cheat, then it would not be a good game. The focus needs to be on the anti-cheat enforcement as a priority, while not letting the cheaters affect the game’s design.
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Games can be fun without incentives to cheat.
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What, like pong? Diablo games will always have things that can be exploited by cheats, otherwise it wouldn’t be a Diablo game. Remove the reasons for people cheating and we are left with a game that is totally different in everyway. They could remove the leaderboards i suppose, but there would be lot’s of legitimate players that would be unhappy about that. An excellent, nigh-unbreakable anti-cheat software system would completely solve the problem, so that’s where the effort should be made. Such a thing takes time, hard work, and many many smarts though, so we must be patient and understanding of what it takes to make a system like that.
Again this thread is not about security. This thread asks players to think outside the box. Restricting leaderboards has already been suggested elsewhere, etc. Can anyone come up with something new and revolutionary that does not discourage competition but that does discourage cheating? No more security comments please.
What you are asking for is wishful thinking. It cannot be done without completely changing the game into something entirely different. It would be nice if it were possible, but it’s not.
Somebody said the possible is easy. The impossible just takes more work or something like that. Nothing is possible if no one makes the attempt.
The only things that solve the cheating problem in a competitive environment is good sportsmanship, enforcement of the rules, and consequences against those that break the rules.
In this instance that would be the anti-cheat software that enforces the rules, and banning accounts that break the rules.
As for the good sportsmanship, this is a real-life problem and cannot be solved by adjusting a game’s design. What solves that is keeping people happy and preventing people from turning towards amoral behaviour, which is a factor not determined by the game’s design but is determined by the same thing that makes anybody be the way they are; life experiences. (edit: and perhaps genetics).
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Play PoE instead maybe?
Good sportsmanship.
You see a constant decline in this the older you get. You see it everywhere there is any competition of any sort. Even fans engage in poor sportsmanship. The losing side tends to make excuses, the winning side tends to obnoxiously flaunt their victory. Instead of giving credit where credit is due, and admitting being out played, “insert excuse here”
It is a terrible epidemic. I blame ourselves for putting so much emphasis on victory.
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